Murder Story of Mena Jews at the Jewish Residences in Mena

… On June 22, 1941 the war began. I had turned 15 on June 17, 1941. Some months after the German occupation of Mena, Chernigov District, we Jews, about 80 people or more, were taken by the police to the basement of the NKVD. Every day, from morning till evening, we had to work to replace the rails [with those of a different gauge] – it is well known that the European rails are narrower than the Russian ones.... In the evening of November 30, 1941 someone started to knock loudly on the door. When we did not open it in time, it was broken open and 5 German soldiers and 3 Ukrainian "girls" entered the house. They beat and tortured us. They threw my mother down and raped her in our presence. The "girls" laughed and shouted to my mother that she was enjoying such a pleasure for a last time in her life and that she should be grateful to the German soldiers. They took my father and mother out of the house. There had been a cellar behind our house, but it had collapsed, its wooden parts had been taken away, and the open space was then used as a garbage pit – we were taken to it and shot there. I was taken third. Two people were holding my arms and the third one walked behind me. When I reached the pit, the third one gave me a strong kick and I fell down. At that point they started to shoot. One bullet wounded me in the shoulder. They then took my younger brother. He resisted, and they shot him in the head with an explosive bullet. His right check was torn apart. After the shooting a German moved down to those who had been shot [in the pit] and stepped on their stomachs, each time uttering the word "kaput" [done for]. When they left, they were laughing loudly....